Australia - Deborah Melville, 12, dies of extreme neglect, Palmerston, 12 July 2007

[Marg from Oz]

I don't know how I missed this when it happened but then at that time I was working 2 jobs and sleeping in my free time. I have just finished reading the inquest. As an ex nurse I was reliving all her pain as I read. That was absolute child cruelty. The foster mum under the law was to provide medical care.
Everyone saw what was happening except the foster mum. It would have interfered with her pokie time to take her to hospital.

D.H.S. seems to be practically non existent in that part of Australia. People will complain of big brother but I feel foster parents should be accountable for the Government money they receive. This woman was able to spend 1.4 million dollars at the pokies. This in it's self says these children were not being cared for properly. I think once she started to get the money she decided to keep them.

There does not seem to be enough indigenous people willing to foster or are assessed as being suitable. White people are deemed as inappropriate to foster or adopt an aborigine, but what do we have left? The situation that we see here.

I don't know what the answer is. I hope they do find charges to lay against the stepmother. But that would cost money and they don't seem to spend it on things that matter up there. It is like it is another third world country........... Sorry to anyone who does not agree but these are my opinions only.

 

[Ausgirl]

In contrast -- I had the pleasure of knowing a wonderful aboriginal family with their own kids who fostered and adopted many children, including several white kids, and that home was filled with love and care (and LOTS of happy little kids! omg, they were all gorgeous!) All the kids were well fed, well dressed, clean and well educated. There was SO much love in that house...

That's the perception of aboriginal families I grew up with.

This wasn't a 'family'. It was a scam. These women had NO interest in raising or caring for those kids, the report linked above lists so many examples of them being neglected and most likely continually molested by the pedophiles they let into their home. It was all about the $$$$$ to feed the gambling habit... over a million bucks stolen from the well-being of those children fed into the slots.

The reports make it very clear that if these women were not aboriginal, the children would have been removed from that household.

I would further venture that if they were of any other culture, they'd be sitting in prison right now. Because I do not fathom HOW they are not, for any other reason.

Child abuse is child abuse, no matter where you're from. In this country, ALL children should recieve the same protection form abuse and neglect, no matter what culture their parents are from!

I truly hope these monsters are eventually re-tried... and the sick pedos they housed, as well.

 

[Hejlena]

Children gave evidence that they washed Deborah's dry mouth out with salt water. Some time in the afternoon, the girl became delirious, talking about fairies and witches and that a limosine was coming to pick her up. "Deborah said, 'I can see the light now'," Melville told police. "And then she just stopped breathing."

Ausgirl, thank you for showing such care for this poor girl. What a nightmare for her, and for all the other children who have to endure such horrible abuse-at the hands of their caregivers as well as at the hands of the state.

I can't figure out with 1.5 liters of pus, wouldn't the leg be obviously swollen?

 

[Ausgirl]

Hejlena, thanks. This case just *guts* me, perhaps because I understand fully what kind of pain Deborah must have been in. I too got delirious before being taken to hospital (thanks to my perceptive little daughter, who reasoned that even if I "just had a flu" - which is what I told her, for some probably delirious reason - I ought not be talking to people who were not there; omg, it was all really terrible ).

Plus, the money-hungry monsters who let this and *many other terrible things* happen got away with it!!! And might right now have a houseful of little kids to neglect and expose to child rapists. It makes me see RED. They should be in prison! They should at the least never be allowed to have children in their care again!

Several people witnessed the swelling of Deborah's leg, and the agony she was in, how sick she was, how much trouble she had walking, etc.

But a jury was apparently convinced the two monsters supposedly 'caring' for this child *could not* have noticed ho9w sick she was.

I call shenanigans. There was something *wrong* with that jury, to bring such a verdict.

 

[Ausgirl]

Just to give people an idea of *how bad* the pain might have been.. I had a doctor compare the extent of damage to my leg as equivalent to 3rd degree burns. Except, with burns of that degree, all the nerve endings are usually dead. With infections, this doesn't happen so much.

Deborah was not only forced to endure that unthinkable level of agony, but was forced to *excercise* and had other kids jumping all over her, etc. One child recalls her 'screaming like she was being killed'. I screamed like that, just from the gentlest pressure. I cannot fathom being forced to walk... and she was soiling herself... and they threw her out in the yard..

yeah, in tears again... I want *justice* for this child. and the other poor kids too.